Our new publication models the diffusion of passengers within the railway network architecture of Metro Manila, Philippines:  

J.M.V. Antenorcruz, R.C. Batac, E.M. Posadas, and R. Sarigumba, Passenger diffusion in the Philippines’ greater capital region railway system using Fick’s laws, Journal of Physics: Conference Series 3268, 012014, https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/3268/1/012014 (2026). 

We represent the stations of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Lines 1 and 2 and the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 as nodes in a network, with their links preserving their geographic separation distances. We then used a discrete form of Fick's Law of diffusion to model the movement of passengers within the network. 

Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the distribution of relaxation times (the time to reach an equilibrium in the number of passengers within the network) are skewed to the left for full operation conditions. In contrast, when the high-betweenness centrality nodes are shut down, the characteristic relaxation times immediately approach infinity, indicating the lack of redundancies in the current network configuration. With extensive work being done to provide additional railway lines over the next few years, there is a need to revisit the Metro Manila railway system using this preliminary work as a benchmark. 

Dr. Jude Antenorcruz and Dr. Rene C. Batac are Research Faculty members of the Complex Systems Group (CSG). Enrico Posadas and Ramon Sarigumba are undergraduate physics majors from the Department of Physics, College of Science, De La Salle University, and are affiliated student researchers under CSG.

Dr. Jude Antenorcruz and Dr. Rene C. Batac are Research Faculty members of the Complex Systems Group (CSG). Enrico Posadas and Ramon Sarigumba are undergraduate physics majors from the Department of Physics, College of Science, De La Salle University, and are affiliated student researchers under CSG.